Keith's Panamanian Travel Ramble

The wanderings of Andrea and Keith around Panama

Posts tagged ‘Cerro Azul’

The Hills of Cerro Azul in the Chagres National Park

Hi All,

Today is move day and there are almost no pictures.  I must apologize but it took much of the day to make the move and when I finally pulled out the camera, the light was gone.  We moved from sea level up to an elevation of about 950M.  Now that doesn’t sound like that much but it will lower the temperature by around 10 degrees during the day.  We rented a little apartment from Panama Canada Realty and it is in an area called Cerro Azul.  Panama City money used to build homes here to escape the heat of the city on weekends and during the summer.   It is close to the city and is about a 40 minute drive from the airport.  Property here is within the Chagres (pronounced Shaw-gress) National Park and is the only place in the country where you can actually buy property with full title in a National Park.  Today’s featured image is shot from our big deck and is of the lights of the city.

We knew we would be somewhat isolated so we stopped at the Super 99 grocery store (the chain is owned by the President of Panama), to lay in some supplies before we left town.  We dragged eight bags of groceries out of that store for a total of $55.35.  Now I don’t know about you but when I go we go to a grocery store in Calgary, I don’t get anything like eight bags for 50 bucks.  Some of the better buys were a dozen eggs for $1.05, Balboa beer for $0.49 each, and three bottles of imported wine for $6.15, $4.09, and $3.60.  Now the wine is no two buck chuck!  We would be paying $20 to $30 each at home for these Chilean imports.  Panama has a very kind taxation structure on alcohol.

From the bottom of the hill, we travel about 25K to our destination.   At first the paved two lane road has a steady gentle uphill grade but that eventually gives out to a paved two lane road that either is going straight up or straight down.  It is not very windy but there is a lot of up and down.  Nothing is level.  The vegetation changes to forest with mostly pine trees.  Every once and awhile, you come upon a place with an elaborate iron gate and fence enclosing a sprawling well manicured property with a large elaborate stone and brick home nestled among the trees.  Most of the property has to be leveled before it can be built on.  It is an interesting community as pretty much all the well kept structures are tucked into the forest.

Getting to our destination was not without some challenges.  I had a street address, but my GPS could not find it.  The owners sent us a hand drawn map that would take us to the security gate and then a two page narrative to get us to the house.  I could use the GPS to get us to the intersection where we left the main road so we ended up using all the tools we had to actually get to our destination.  The directions were pretty good and we finally got to where we were going.

We are in a house with the main floor occupied by the owner, who is away.  There are two suites on the lower level, one of which is ours.  It is pretty typically Panamanian but it is clean and has almost everything we need.  There is a full length deck across the back of the house that is about 20 feet deep.  It overlooks nothing but forest and hills.  When we look one direction, off in the distance you can see the skyline of Panama City through the haze.  The other direction has a view of the canal.  Other than that, trees, hills, clouds, and blue sky.  You cant even see any of your neighbors.  You could run around naked here and you wouldn’t scare anything but the birds!  There is a pleasant breeze and the temperature, I would estimate to be in the low 20sC.

Our directions said that the door would be unlocked and the key would be on the table.  Just as we determined that there was only one towel, there was a knock at the door and a young woman handed us towels.  There is supposed to be a complex containing a restaurant, tennis courts, and a pool so we thought we would check it out.  When we arrived the security gate was down so we walked in.  We found a sign directing us to a restaurant so followed it to a neatly pained building that was locked up.  You could see all the tables properly set for a meal but there was nobody around.  The front door contained no sign indicating the hours of operation.  We headed back towards the car when we came upon a man walking toward us with a laptop under his arm.  We spoke to him and found out he was married to a Panamanian woman and living there part of the year and in Colorado for the rest.  Interesting character!  He is a lawyer with a practice in Colorado but was one of the authors of the document that described the US turnover of the canal to Panama.  He left Panama with the other Americans on 31 December 1999, when the canal became Panamanian.

He was headed to the restaurant to use their WiFi signal to check his email.  We pumped him for local information and determined that the restaurant was closed today because of the holiday yesterday.  Rather than driving back to town, we elected to get by on our recently purchased groceries and go back for breakfast.

Our house has no Internet, or TV so I will have to use the restaurant WiFi to update the blog.  I can write the content offline and upload it once I have a connection.

Martyrs Day is Dry

Hi Travel Fans,

Today is a special day here in Panama.  Flags throughout the country fly at half mast to commemorate those killed in the Flag Riots of 1964.  This was a tumultuous time in Panamanian history and riots broke out over the flying of a flag.  At that time, the US controlled the canal and had agreed to fly both the US and the Panamanian flags in various places throughout the Canal Zone.  As this turned out to be quite controversial, the governor of the Canal Zone decided to remove some flagpoles altogether.  Balboa High School was one place where the flag poles were to be removed but the students took things into their own hands and raised the US flag before the pole could be removed.  Keep in mind that this was a place within the Canal Zone that contained mostly US families.  A group of Panamanian university students decided that there should be a Panamanian flag flying from that pole, not a US flag so they organized a march to the high school and attempted to change the flags.  What ensued was rioting, looting, destruction, and mayhem with two dozen people loosing their lives.

Today, 9 January, is officially known as Martyrs’ Day here in Panama.  It is a public holiday.  Interestingly enough is the fact that no liquor can be sold during this day.  If you go into a grocery store, you will find the liquor aisles taped off and if you are in a restaurant or bar, you wont be able to order anything alcoholic.  Many stores and restaurants close for the day as well.  I like the serious and respectful approach that this country takes to remembering this important event in their history.

Well, enough history!  Today I promised you some information about our real estate meeting.  We learned about this opportunity through International Living Magazine some time ago.  It is a new 96 suite exclusive boutique hotel that is to be built in downtown Panama City that will be called the Park Inn.  The neighborhood is good and it is within walking distance of the business area, restaurants, and the waterfront.  The concept is that the rooms are being sold as condominiums, to each owner.  It is an exclusive property as all rooms are one bedroom units.  There is a 20 year contract in place for the Radisson to manage and run the property and the Carlson Hotel group will be handling the reservations and marketing.  It is expected to take up to 20 months to complete the building and have the hotel working.  Revenues will be pooled for all units and the owners distribution will be based on the unit size (there are 3).  Current pricing is pre construction and coming to an end shortly.  There will be two more jumps in the pricing of about 10% each as the construction begins and then as the construction completes.  It is an interesting concept and the developer seems to have put all the pieces together.  The first deposit is 10% and there will be two more 10% payments required as the building progresses.  Seventy percent mortgages are available here in Panama from HSBC at around 6% that only amortize for 10 years, which we are told is common here for investments.  Current pricing varies from around US$240K through US$318K, accomodating the different floor and unit sizes.  We will give this a little more serious consideration and crunch some numbers to see if the revenue will support the expenses but on the surface, this makes sense to us.

We came back to the hotel to pick up the car and head out to the end of the causeway for some lunch.  It was extremely busy there as the Coral Princess was in port and passengers were beginning to arrive back from their various tours.  The Coral Princess stood off shore and passengers were being tendered back to the ship.  After an unremarkable lunch, and a few pictures, we decided to head over the Bridge of the Americas to find the new Westin hotel in Playa Bonita that just opened in December.

We have friends who are coming to Panama during Carnival and they will be staying here.  Nice property, right on the Pacific but it is quite remote.  We talked to a couple of guests who said it was a $25 cab ride per couple if you wanted to go into the city.  It is a good place to sell all-inclusive packages because there are no close local options.  We checked out a room and it is definitely up to the Westin standards.  Understandably, they are going through some growing pains as they get staff trained up to the Westin level and there are still small things left to do on the building.  There is also construction of another tower on the same property that is far from complete.  The guest we talked with said that some people were unhappy with the food and service levels as the Westin continues to work out the kinks of a new operation.

 

 

 

 

We decided that pasta might be in order for dinner tonight.  Well, not really!  It was more like the pasta joint was one of the few restaurants open.  Remember, this is Martyrs’ Day.  We found el Dente Restaurant not far from our hotel, at the start of the causeway.  We ordered an appetizer which was a bacon and cheese brochette.  Remember bacon is one of he major food groups to me so anything containing it goes straight to the top of the list.  It was good!  Next came a couple of pastas that we don’t see at home much.  I had chicken lasagna and Andrea ordered chicken cannelloni.  Again, no English menus and no pictures this time.  Tonight was a real surprise when we got what we thought we ordered.  Dinner was great but much toooooo large!  Total bill was $37.

Today’s featured image is a sunset over the canal, taken right in front of the Country Inn Panama Canal in Amador.

Well, enough for today.  Tomorrow we leave this hotel and make our way up the mountain to Cerro Azul.  I wonder if I should have tire chains, just in case?